...Virtue, morality, and religion. This is the armor, my friend, and this alone that renders us invincible. These are the tactics we should study. If we lose these, we are conquered, fallen indeed...
Patrick Henry (1736-1799) US Founding Father

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

"We want to continue to fight todenormalize smoking," the Queens Democrat said yesterday.

Council Seeks New Ban on Smoking by Parents in CarsIf enacted, smoking in cars with riders under the age of 18 would join a growing list of activities barred by the city, including making too much noise at night, serving trans fats in restaurants, and allowing students to carry cell phones in school....Mr. Gennaro's proposal calls for fines of $200 to $400 for a firstsmoking violation, $500 to $1,000 for a second violation in a single year, andbetween $1,000 and $2,000 for a third violation in a year. The New York PoliceDepartment would get the task of enforcing the law.

I know smoking is bad for one's health and I smoke. I also drive fast, eat what I like and drink, but the whole secondhand smoke danger is based on junk science.

Many people do not like the smell of cigarette smoke. With those people I sympathize because for years non-smokers had little option in public places to get away from cigarette smoke and this was wrong and unfair.

Today local, state and nations governments desperate to show their uncontained compassion enact overreaching laws that are unnecessary, wrong and based on crap science. Should the owner of a private enterprise be told that patrons are banned from smoking a legal product in their place of business? No. Should the owner of a private enterprise be allowed to ban smoking in their place of business? Absolutely.

The legislature here in Ohio working hand-in-hand with that great republican Bob Taft enacted a statewide ban on smoking in public places. My wife and I enjoyed going out to lunch and dinner, especially since our children were grown and we had a little extra money and time. Many times I would telephone my wife and ask her out for a drink before heading home for dinner. No more. You do the math, average 3 times a week that we would have a lunch together, a dinner out and stop for a drink or some combination. Now we stay home and have friends over, but for how much longer before our compassionate leaders step the ban up to include abodes such and such feet apart.

Now these people are going after soft drinks, how we cook our food, banning perfume and on and on. Maybe next they'll ban bowling in a bowling alley because the bowling balls are a potential danger. The good Lord knows they have denormalized religion.

One of my sisters, a professor, told me that she couldn't wait for tobacco products to be banned completely. When I agreed she was surprised. Her smug smile went away when I explained that when they tried that with booze our uncle made a fortune smuggling and selling booze which is how his children got to go to Princeton. All tuition prepaid.

There is an old joke that campaign veterans toss around war rooms, bars andBS sessions. We say there are people who have worked in campaigns who say that they have lost some – and we call those folks operatives, managers, strategists,consultants; and then there are people who work in campaigns and say that theyhave never lost, and we call them liars.

Yes, and there are also those we discuss that refuse to ever pick up a tab, are verbose and generally brag and pontificate. We call them liars.

Did Karl Rove make some bad decisions? Of course he did. He is human. He also was not the calculating controller that people like James Carville want us to believe. He is a human with his own set of values that George W. Bush trusted. As well, George W. Bush is human with his own set of values and Karl Rove trusted him. It has been a good relationship.

Carville is projecting falsely for his own perceived benefit.

Did Karl Rove lose a generation of Republicans? No, he didn't. No matter what the left believes, Karl Rove has never been that powerful.

Politics is the art of the possible. Therefore, the notion of the politicaloperative as magician or evil genius is nonsensical. Yet it's easy to see whythe image holds sway. First, most of us are prone at times to magical thinking.Second, the press likes to write these kinds of stories. Third, it provides thelosing party with an easy excuse. Fourth, it can provide the winning party witha sense of invincibility.

Power Line has this hilarious follow-up item.

In what seems certain to be the dumbest statement of the week, DavidCorn of The Nation said on National Public Radio that, by leaving the WhiteHouse, Karl Rove was "cutting and running" on Iraq.

Cutting and running. Why are Democrats obsessed with it? Really. 35 plus years they have been hoping and saying it in various ways, but it always means one thing, American failure. Maybe Truman was their evolutionary Peter Principle ending point.

Karl Rove is off to make his fortune. Good luck to him. Just think how evil he can be without the spotlight on him. Hee hee.

Paula Nowakowski

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The Democrats are the party that says government will make you smarter, taller, richer, and remove the crabgrass on your lawn. The Republicans are the party that says government doesn't work and then they get elected and prove it. - P. J. O'Rourke

"What an irony that a society confronted with plastic bags filled with the remains of aborted babies should be more concerned about the problem of recycling the plastic"... - Winifred Egan